Worn to Death - Ella Emhoff
I sat down with the infamous Ella Emhoff to learn about her views on sustainability, her love for her dog, and what she's wearing to death.
Ella Emhoff is a lot of things. It’s hard to concisely describe what she does and it feels wrong (read: unfair) to label her as any one thing. I’ve thought for a while about how best to introduce Ella to those who don’t know who she is, and struggle to pin her with any one definition. I’m sure a lot of readers know her as a result of her political associations, but I didn’t meet and don’t interact with her in that way. How would I describe Ella to someone who had never heard of her?
“Influencer” isn’t right. Yes, she’s in the fold of fashion tastemakers — another word I wouldn’t use, but also isn’t completely wrong — but doesn’t post daily fitchecks, create store reviews, and build her career off of consuming fashion like some of the big industry names. However, “influencer” may apply: I assume readers know who Ella Emhoff is. When she appears at an event, chances are that it’ll be written about. She was relentlessly lampooned by the right and elevated to a new-age people’s champion by the left over the election cycle. She certainly commands respect in the public sphere and yes, she holds influence over many people. It’s just not the most appropriate word.
Labeling Ella a model doesn’t properly capture her area of work. She’s walked runways and likes doing so, gracing viewers of Coach, Collina Strada, and Proenza Shouler (to name a few) with an intense stare and her insane cheekbone structure. It’s amusing to see Ella stone-faced on these runways. As we hang out, she’s constantly laughing, emoting, and generally expressing emotion. She’s certainly talented on the runway, but “model” isn’t the first word I’d use to describe her.
“Artist” is probably the closest I can get. Ella likes the term for herself. She’s been making knit portraits (not intarsia, but a secret second thing) and held a show at a gallery last year. Her portraits are quintessentially her; fisheye photos of her friends, Jerry, and unflattering photos of herself are all cast in multichromatic yarn. “Send me that. I want to make that a portrait,” she said of an unflattering photo of her eating pasta. Her practice is interesting, personal, and, like everything she does, distinctly her. There’s something beautifully artistic about blending knitting — a tender and time-intensive act usually reserved for person-to-person exchanges during the holidays — and portraiture, a medium with a long history of both enforcing rigid rules and celebrating those who break them.
So, here’s where I stand. I’m going to call (and refer to her henceforth) as my friend. I love my friends! I think they’re really cool! I’ll talk anybody’s ear off about them and I’m unabashedly proud of all of them. I think it’s apt that, despite her achievements, professional practice, and public image, I still default to using “friend” to describe her.
I’ve made it clear: I could write an entire other piece about the type of person Ella is, just as I could with any of my friends. Rather than being too wordy in a conventional profile, I’m using the clothing she chooses to wear often to frame a profile of Ella and give readers insight into how she lives, acts, and works. That, in short, is the essence of Worn to Death. Old clothes are cool! Let’s celebrate them (and the people who have worn them) rather than constantly pushing others to buy something new!
We constantly make a conscious or unconscious choice to convey something about ourselves through what we wear, how we wear it, and how we take care of what we own. We don’t just wear our hearts on our sleeves; we wear them in frayed cuffs, distressed hems, and separating necklines. From the first time we wear something, we infuse ourselves into the fabric of the garment itself – I know it sounds corny, but it’s true!
This dynamic is why I wanted to profile Ella. What she wears — and how she wears it — is emblematic of a deep appreciation for herself, the contagious nature of the enthusiasm for her passions, and her unending zeal for artistry and craft. Let’s take a look into her wardrobe, what she wears, and learn more about ourselves on the way.
As you turn the corner to approach Ella’s apartment, the hallway — dim and nondescript — severely under-prepares you for the veritable explosion of life within her loft. Your first hint is the heavily-worn Stussy welcome mat that greets you as you approach the apartment. “Welcome”, it reads in the loopy, playful font of the Laguna Beach-originating streetwear brand.
Barking erupts from Jerry, Ella’s half-Jack Russell, half-dachshund, when I knock. My own dog, Leo, starts whining in response. I can hear Ella walk to the door as her refrain of “ok, Jerry,” gets louder and louder, and the door swings open to her smiling face. “Hey, dude!” she says, giving me a hug, as the two dogs start running laps in the entryway.
The apartment is emblematic of Ella’s personality, and hanging out in it is the closest you can get to climbing into her brain. Jerry and Leo relax on a multicolored rug while Ella finishes some dinner and I explain what I’m looking to achieve with this series. There’s yarn — and tools to shape, modify, and join it — everywhere. There isn’t a color in the visual spectrum that can’t be found in some nook or cranny. There are portraits of friends on thick printer paper, hung on walls, and cast in yarn, stretched across wooden frames. The space is unapologetically, unabashedly utilitarian, but not at all austere. Every inch is personalized in order to accommodate the working, planning, booking, writing, drawing, knitting, ideating, and living that Ella does in the space.
We walk up a narrow flight of stairs to Ella’s room-become-closet. I’m immediately thankful that I brought a camera. There are clothes everywhere. I ask readers to keep in mind that I’m a single man in my mid-twenties: I do not see many women’s closets. This isn’t for lack of interest! I love looking at piles of clothing in people’s spaces. I think they reveal a lot when you take a peek at what’s grabbed first, what’s sorted back on top of the pile, and what’s tossed on the floor or on a chair for easy access.
It’s impossible to write about the way that Ella wears clothes without mentioning Jerry. J-Man, Little Man, J, Mr. Stink, Mr. Man, J Dizzle, or, most commonly, “Bro”, is everywhere. Ella’s black sweater was covered in Jerry’s distinctive white hair. His toys, poop bags, and face are everywhere. He can’t talk, but dictates what she must have close on hand for trips to the park and bathroom runs at nearly every hour of the day. He’s got a sweater collection that might warrant his own Worn to Death. He’s recently become an easy subject for instantly-adored gifts from both Ella’s family and brands alike. Shortly after the interview, she sent me a customized pair of sneakers from a luxury brand that someone adorned with a ballpoint-pen doodle of Jerry. She has multiple shirts with his face on them, including an adorable, custom-made tee with puppy-Jerry in a dapper bow tie. “[My boyfriend] Charlie got it for me. It was his adoption photo,” Ella explains through a creased brow, a slight pout in her lip, and a cocked head, the unmistakable face of someone in love with a puppy.
As we talked, a heavily worn sweater sitting on top of a wooden bench in Ella’s loft-turned-closet caught my eye. “The yarn’s gotten so fine that I can see my fingers through it,” she explained while stretching the fabric. “I’ve had this sweater for 12 years. I wear it every day and it was just some random-ass Goodwill pickup.” For many, continued wear of clothing or bags is a subtractive process; holes form, hems tear, and shoes grind away. This couldn’t be more different for Ella, for whom wearing clothing is inevitably additive. “It’s got holes everywhere, but I’ve been fixing them up,” she explains of the sweater. In accordance with her artistic practice, blue and yellow thread closes a quarter-sized hole on the chest. I love this detail; rather than being something to fix, the repair becomes a little project and an opportunity for Ella’s personality and passion to be infused into the garment.
Heavy, daily wear is a theme for many of Ella’s favorite pieces, many of which are thrifted or found at deep discount on Poshmark or The Real Real. When I ask about the things she looks for while shopping, she gets intensely serious. “Comfort. It’s comfort. I got these track pants at the L Train [Vintage] on 2nd Ave.” She holds up a pair of the classic black joggers and a grin creeps back across her face. “There’s a crazy story about these. I went home and was poking around some of my things, and found that my dad bought the matching jacket sometime in the 2000’s. The pants are perfect: they’ve got the same fit as [the] Needles H.D. trackpants.” Ella’s other pair of daily beaters are a pair of Online Ceramics sweatpants. “They’re easy. Perfect fit, comfortable, heavy duty, fun graphic,” she explains as she gestures to the cracked yellow plastisol ink.
Jeans are also a staple for Ella. “These are on top of my clothing pile. I got these on Poshmark,” she notes of some Story mfg. denim. “They were magically my size, and I think I’ve worn them five days a week since. They’re just the perfect size. The one thing I wish they’d make was these exact jeans in a heavier fabric. These are too light for the winter, and I don’t like wearing Long Johns.” She pauses. “I won’t wear Long Johns.”
We had to pause because the dogs were beefing again.
I love Ella’s brand of wearing in or transforming her clothing. Nothing ever truly dies when it’s in her hands; it takes on a new shape, like some sort of cotton play-doh. It calls back to her time doing Soft Hands Knit Club, an open-to-the-public event where she’d teach people to crochet or knit in a social, low-stakes, high-positivity setting.
She’s taken those same crafting skills and applied them to her wardrobe, fixing, cropping, and pinning things to give them new life. “Darning, upcycling, and more generally, sustainability are all trendy. I hate to call sustainability a trend, because I don’t want it to be a trend. I remember watching a documentary and seeing landfills of clothing. I’ve always been into mending, but that was what gave me a push – [mending] has become an important part of my day to day. I have a lot of clothes, but I don’t want to throw them away or make them someone else’s problem. I wanted to figure out how I could bring them into my artistic practice, so I started making yarn out of old t-shirts, bedsheets, and stained fabric and turned that yarn into pillows, plant covers, a dog bed, or something else. I do a lot of mending projects with existing fabric or recycling fabrics. People are making content about upcycling, which is a good thing, but it’d hate to see this just fall into being swept away in the trend cycle. I think you’ve got to live with [the idea of sustainability] ingrained in your life and wear things until they’re completely worn out. I’ll wear shoes until they come apart.”
She’s not lying. Ella dives into a sleeping-nook and starts pulling out shoes. Some of them, true to her word, have soles that flap as you turn them in your hands (the photos of these shoes didn’t come out well, sorry!). “I wear a lot of my crazy shoes. I wear [Miu Miu Combat Boots] the most, and wear [Givenchy Lock Boots] to a lot of events. I got both of them because I went to the show – they’re both samples, and they’re both pretty cooked. Now that I’m not doing a lot of modeling, influencing, girlypopping, I don’t really feel the need to peacock as much.”
Ella reached the level of celebrity — in both New York and in the US — where she doesn’t have to wear anything ostentatious to get noticed. It’s not that she can’t do it (she’s got an amazing collection of beautiful clothing that, unlike much influencer-driven NYFW styling, is eye-catching because it’s beautiful but not garish), but rather that her priorities and goals have changed as they pertain to fashion. It makes sense; I can’t imagine being under the scrutiny that Ella’s been under for the past four (plus) years. Constantly being watched, inspected, and scrutinized by a subset of vitriolic and nasty people actively rooting for you to misstep sounds horrible. It makes sense that, in this day and age, Ella wants her clothing to be the last thing she has to worry about.
“I’m not trying to be flashy or grab attention. [Back when I dressed in brighter colors], that was an extension of my personality. At the time, I was like ‘I am the quirky colorful girl! That’s how I was in high school and college!’ Now that I’m in a more professional setting, I don’t need to be buying crazy stuff. I’m not going to crazy events. I can be more chic and toned down, which I find is almost better looking,” she explains, “but there are some brands that I’ll go all-out for. I’ll never say no when Thom Browne calls.”
I was curious as to how Ella brings her current sensibilities and preferences for comfort, customization, and toned-down-chicness to her current work. “I’m a fashion show’s worst nightmare,” she laughs, almost apologetically. “I really enjoy a lot of what I get to wear — I love Stella McCartney, and my relationship with them has become a wonderful partnership. It’s great to be able to vocalize what I’m interested in right now (suiting, basics, etc.) and have them come back and say ‘Say less. Let’s make this work!’ Overall, brands want to see how real people would end up wearing their clothes.” I think Ella does this very well. Through her customization, accessories, and general approach to clothing, she wears her clothes (and not vice versa) in almost every setting.
Ella swaps from showing me her favorite DNC-fashion-icon outfits (a Simone Rocha runway coat here, a silk Vampire’s Wife dress there) to her dog-walk, coffee run outfits. It’s like she shifts gears; she’s still in the same seat in the same car, but she can operate at a different speed. She pulls a pair of lined camouflage slippers from a bucket next to her dresser. “These are my Texas 5000’s,” she announces, proudly. “I got them at Walmart.”
She dives back into her sleeping-nook clothing cave. “I wear this when it’s cold,” she says of a vintage Patagonia fleece with repaired sleeve cuffs. It is, unsurprisingly, covered in Jerry’s hair.
The final piece to the puzzle to understand how Ella wears — and lives in — her clothing is to understand her love for bags. She loves a bag. They’re literally everywhere. “My friends keep telling me that I’d regret selling this,” Ella says of a baby blue bottega bag, “It’s a legacy piece!” She grabs another bag from the back of a coat rack. “You’re going to love this. It’s from an artist who repurposes basketballs! They made this for me.” She loves artistic bags, utilitarian bags, designer bags (like those from Puppets and Puppets or MEDEA) but most of all, she loves bags that she’s made her own.
One of those bags is a proto-messenger bag that bears unmistakable evidence of a life enjoyed. “I think I got this on Etsy for $25,” she explains, holding the bag up for a photo. “What do I even have in here? A candy cane. A dog bone. A poop bag.” Pins and brooches stand out on the gradually-fading black leather of the bag and have created small, white, concentric rings as they’ve spun in place over the years. A rhinestone turtle lounges on the strap. A sticker has somehow fused itself to the inside of one of the pockets.
She’s constantly making things hers. “This bag came with some of the pins in it, but I put all of the charms, pins, and dangly bits onto it,” she proudly explains of a plaid handbag. “I love anything with my name on it,” she continues, tilting an I-Love-New-York tchotchke-style keychain that slowly flashes her name towards me, “anything with an E on it.”
Ella and I talked for almost two hours. I have a lot of interview material to sift through. I can continue to wax poetic about Ella’s extensive t-shirt collection (she’s got some amazing stuff), her favorite leather jacket (a Re/Done biker jacket that’s aging in all the right ways), her collection of LA Lakers merch (I’m a Celtics fan, so know that it pains me to even write the L-word), her customized Crocs, or her dozens of amazing vintage hats (the way I usually spot her when we hang out). I don’t think expanding on any of those would help you to better understand Ella or emphasize my love of heavily-worn, heavily-loved clothing.
The final article of clothing I will discuss is the second thing Ella showed me: her brother’s belt. “It’s the only belt I’ve ever owned, besides the one I’m wearing. My brother wore it to a dance. It’s perfectly cooked and seasoned. It’s authentically an old belt – I had to put holes in it so I could wear it.” It’s a small thing like this that shows how Ella approaches clothing (and life). Nothing is hers until she puts her spin on it. She’s committed to what works, what looks good, and what’s made well. There exists an appreciation for craft, but a greater priority on comfort and functionality that permeates her approach to dressing.
I admire Ella a lot. It’s clear as to why so many people love her: she’s got a magnetic personality, has a bright, easy smile, and is generous with her time and kindness. She cares about the environment, the right of people to live in dignity, and women’s rights (all things that, you’d imagine, would be agreeable for most). She somehow ran through the political gauntlet in the US during the most high-profile, divided election and came out as a well-adjusted, kind person. I have the utmost respect for her and her character.
It’s easy to learn from Ella the person, but what more can we glean the clothes she’s wearing to death? Firstly, prioritize comfort but make an effort to look chic. Her colorful, bright, and quirky personality still shines through, even in a camo-colored dog walking fit, thanks to the right beanie, a fun pair of sunglasses, or a distinctive sweater for Mr. Stinky. Secondly, learn to repair your clothing. Sustainability, however buzz-wordy at this point in time, is an important aspect to fashion that, unfortunately, seems to be fading as access to new clothing (which often sucks) expands. This second point isn’t only exemplified by Ella, but actively promoted on her substack, where she teaches people how to knit and is vocal about uplifting others in the space.
Thirdly, live a rich life of passion and let your clothes serve those passions. Too often, we (me included!) get plagued with “too cool to wear” syndrome: Ella gets it herself with the aforementioned Simone Rocha coat! Despite that, she shapes her wardrobe around the life she lives, and not vice versa. Finally and logically following our previous lessons, customize your clothing. We may not all have the same access that Ella does to cool clothing, but we all have access to the same tools she does. The most interesting pieces in Ella’s wardrobe (her brother’s belt, her bag covered in bits and baubles, the patched sweater) serve as starting points for her artistic pursuits and sensibilities.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of attributing Ella’s style to her access or her background, but you don’t need to be famous to do what Ella does. Over our two hour interview, what came up most was how Ella applied what she learned and loved to do within those spaces, and not vice versa. While yes, existing in those spaces helps, you don’t need to be a career artist or a runway model or have an internet following. You don’t need a training from Parsons to crop a t-shirts like Ella (fabric scissors are $22 at the time of writing this) or a degree in thrift-o-nomics to scroll through Poshmark to find fun hats. What you need, rather, is to live with a dedication to those around you (or to a dog, if you’re lucky), a commitment to reusing rather than replacing, and the willingness to create. Being chic (as Ella describes it) is impossible without first being comfortable; in yourself, what you do, and what you wear.
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